Immortalis est Odium
by USEChairman
Summary: Sly Cooper and his gang have succeeded in thwarting Neyla's plans for France. Now, in their final confrontation with the traitor, they fight to break her connection to her stolen body and end the legacy of Clockwerk forever. Unfortunately, little do they know that something evil is stirring beneath the plates of that ancient body. Because, after all, pure hatred is hard to kill.


**France, the outskirts of the city Paris. Early morning.**

"You insignificant vermin! You can't beat me! I still have my hate chip; I am immortal!"

"We need to get it out of her! Hurry!"

"One second! Almost… I got it! Come on guys, let's… Ghhaaaa!"

"Bentley, no! Don't worry buddy, I gotcha!"

"Hurry! I think he's hurt!"

"Guys… pick me up… I can't… I can't move my legs…"

"C'mon little guy, let's get you outta here!"

As Murray quickly but gently lifted Bentley's broken body from the great owl's beak, I could feel my heart sink. The whole lower half of his shell had caved in, with cracks snaking across the surface like the dry ground of a dessert. One larger crack arced along his back like a canyon, and I could only assume that came from the sharp edge of the metal beak. The sight of one of my lifelong friends being so critically injured was devastating to me, and the nagging thought that the damage would be lasting… well, I didn't want to think about it.

Unfortunately, (or luckily, whichever way you wanted to look at it) I didn't have time to think about anything, since I knew we needed to get away from the twisted remains of the great beast in front of us. With my cane, I gestured to Murray and said. "Come on, we need to go!"

The big hippo tore his eyes from the turtle in his arms to look at me with a heartbroken expression. "But Bentley's really hurt!"

"And we'll get help for him, I promise. But we need to move now!"

Murray nodded once, before securing Bentley in a firm grip and taking off, leaving the wreckage behind.

I was hot on his heels, trailing alongside him as I leapt over chunks of twisted metal, pieces of complex machinery that I couldn't begin to identify, and other debris that I didn't know (and didn't care) if they came from Arpeggio's blimp, or the beast behind me.

However, I came to a sudden stop as something caught my eye. As Bentley bounced along with Murray's short strides, something slipped out of his limp hand and fell into a pile of dust below.

"The hate chip." I whispered urgently.

Since Murray didn't seem to notice it, I quickly changed my course and leapt toward the fallen device. As I snatched it up and held it in my hand, I couldn't help but take a moment and stare at the vile device.

It was so ordinary. Had I not known what it really was, I could have easily believed it was a simple circuit for one of Bentley's devices, or even for his laptop. Could something so small really have been the cause behind the whole history of my family's suffering?

As if in answer, a quiet, yet piercingly high hum suddenly caught my ears. It was a shrill, screeching sound that I at first thought was the cry of broken machinery straining to function. I spun around to confirm that the sound was definitely coming from the massive, steel owl behind me.

The whole body was trembling and jerking, as though something within it was trying to escape. The sound, rather than die down, instead slowly began to increase in intensity, louder and louder, echoing back and forth across the field of debris until it became almost earsplitting. Had I not had my cane in one hand and the chip in the other, I would have covered my ears to block the deafening screech.

And it didn't stop. It only got louder and louder, until I finally realized what it really was. It wasn't the sound of grinding steel…

It was a scream… It was a shrill, pained, pitiful scream, distorted as it sounded up from the depths of the owl, but still the most terrible that I'd ever heard.

It was Neyla. Without even a pause for breath, Neyla was screaming as though she were being burned alive. And it wasn't stopping, it was only growing louder and even more agonizing.

As I stood there, I desperately wanted to drop the objects in my hands to block the piercing cry. But I instead found myself paralyzed in place, overcome with sheer horror at Neyla's terrible, desperate scream.

And then, without warning, it suddenly climaxed. The scream suddenly jumped up to deafening levels, and the body of the owl jumped with it. Leaning up and throwing its head up to the sky, the great mechanical monster appeared to be screaming to the heavens.

And with that, it was suddenly over. The owl's head slowly creaked down until it crashed back to the ground, and the scream seemed to fall with it, dying down like a speaker that had lost its power. The eyes of the beast flickered once, twice, until they both faded to black. The entire metal body, every last component, fell totally still.

I stood there in silence, totally stunned and completely clueless. I was only just beginning to wonder what had just happened when the owl began to move again.

As I watched, I could hear as cogs began turning, pistons and servos began pounding, and and a thumping, terrifyingly powerful sound as the heart within began beating once more.

And then, with a sudden spark flashing out from within, I watched as the cold, yellow eyes lit up with the same light that had struck fear into so many Coopers before me.

As both eyes turned in their sockets to lock onto me, I quickly bent down into a battle position, brandishing my cane and hiding the chip behind my back, ready for whatever last attack Neyla had in store.

But then it spoke. From within the broken body of the great owl, a voice said a single word.

"Cooper…"

I froze. That voice… that was not Neyla's voice, with her Cockney accent and the burning rage that had been steadily building in the final minutes of our intense battle.

No… that voice was deep and calm. Steady and precise. Cold. Calculating. Cutting. Threatening. Emotionless. Incredibly intelligent. And if nothing else, pure evil. And it was the voice that filled more nightmares than I'd care to admit, the same voice I had heard as a child that horrible night.

"Clockwerk…" I whispered, terror gripping every fiber of my body.

"Hmm…" He droned quietly, as though he were having a simple conversation. "Fitting, that you are the first thing I see upon reawakening. That you are here with me, it almost feels like..." He grumbled, a deep rumbling sound that sounded as though he were laughing. "Destiny."

Recovered from my terror, and instead filled with anger, I pointed my cane at the great owl and said. "You've been alive this whole time, haven't you?"

"Alive?" Clockwerk laughed his rumbling chuckle again. As he did, I could see that he was trying to move his battered body, slowly testing every joint. He appeared to possess greater control of the damaged clockwork frame than Neyla did, and eventually, he managed to raise one of his wings and stick the tips of the great, steel feathers into the ground. With the sound of creaking and grinding metal, he slowly used the wing to push his head and his body upwards off of the ground, both eyes still locked onto me.

"Do you really believe I've ever been alive?" He asked with amusement in his voice.

"No." I said plainly. "You're nothing more than an oversized phantom. Just a scary story Cooper parents tell their children."

My insult only seemed to amuse the bird, and he let out another grumbling chuckle. It looked as though he trying to make his other wing respond to his commands, but the whole thing wouldn't move more than an occasional jolt. After a moment of trying, he suddenly lost his balance as his functioning wing slipped from the spot he had been using to anchor his body. He only just caught himself before the whole frame crashed to the earth once more.

"Hmm…" He growled, finally taking his evil eyes off of me to observe his own body, just as sparks suddenly shot out again from various joints across his massive frame. "I'm surprised you didn't destroy these parts when you had the chance, Cooper…"

Even though he seemed to be muttering to himself, I responded anyway. "Trust me, it was on my to-do list." I raised my cane again and pointed it at him in accusation. "What did you do with Neyla?"

"Neyla?" He laughed, this time louder and more distinct than before. "The pretender? The liar? The one who thought to share in my immortality? Frankly, I was surprised she even managed to make this body take flight."

With a grinding creak, the metal creature managed to slowly raise himself back up, still only able to use one of his massive wings as support. Turning his horrible head to face me again, both of his piercing, yellow eyes locked onto me and caused my heart to skip a beat as they bored into my very soul.

"You don't have to worry about Neyla anymore, Cooper. Her body has been broken down into ash. Her mind has been deleted and wiped from my memory banks. Her very soul has been purged from my systems, slowly and methodically, without even a chance of recovery. She is now less than a memory."

"That's…" I faltered, horrified at his words, said as calmly as though he were commenting on the weather. I'll admit, after all Neyla had done to me and my team, I certainly wasn't ready to show her any mercy. But after hearing her final, horrible scream and hearing Clockwerk's description of her fate… Well, that wasn't something I'd wish on anyone.

I found my voice. "That's unbelievably cruel. You're nothing more than a heartless monster!"

He only chuckled again, shaking his head as he did. "Monster? How cute. Tell me, Cooper; does this monster still keep you up at night? Do the stories about me that your mother told you before bed still give you nightmares?"

He didn't seem to want an answer as he suddenly rose up with a groan of effort, pushing with his one functioning wing until he was almost at his full height, albeit still lopsided. Now that he had raised his body off of the ground, I could see at least one of his powerful talons was at least somewhat functional, while the other had been twisted and mangled beyond recognition.

"Perhaps I am a monster." He said coolly, as he rested the other half of his great weight on that one functioning talon, still having to use his wing to support his other side. "Perhaps I am everything you say I am. But you know, there's something funny about us monsters; something that the mothers never have the heart to tell their children at bedtime."

And suddenly, much faster than I would have thought possible considering how damaged he was, Clockwerk unearthed his wing and threw it forward, sticking the steel feathers at the end back into the dust, and using it to pull himself forward slightly, dragging himself closer to me.

"Monsters don't die!" He said, a malice in his voice that hadn't been there before. "You may try all you want, and utilize every last trick in that accursed book of yours, but you can't kill me. I am immortal!"

"You're wrong!" I yelled, finally taking the chip out from behind my back and lifting it up into the air. "I've figured out your secret, Clockwerk! I know what's kept you alive so long! I have your hate chip! I'm going to destroy it, and you'll be gone! Forever!"

The echoing silence afterwards was overwhelming, and his piercing gaze was almost enough to make me collapse to the ground in fear. But I stood there defiantly, still raising the chip high into the air, ready to smash it into dust if Clockwerk so much as made a move.

However, the silence was broken with a sound I hadn't expected: Laughter. Clockwerk was laughing, quietly, but sincerely and without any of the fear I had expected.

"Ah Sly," he said. "I don't know why I expected more from you. Go ahead. Break the trinket. Watch as I crumble into rust and dust before you, and live the rest of your pitiful life in peace and security. It will only make it all the more fun."

"W-what are you talking about?" I asked, stuttering despite my best efforts.

"You don't really believe that the secret to my longevity is..." he chuckled. "That?"

"No! You're lying! This is the source of your hatred for my family!"

"The source of my hatred!?" He bellowed, the sudden burst of rage causing me to flinch slightly. "My hatred for you, and for all Coopers, cannot be contained in a jumble of wires and circuits! My hatred is vast, burning, and eternal! It was sparked by your ancestors' blind incompetence, and it is fueled by my mission! To hunt down every Cooper, and to wipe them from the Earth!"

Paired with the sound of grinding metal, Clockwerk used his great wing to take another 'step' towards me.

"That, tiny device is nothing more than a conduit. An anchor to this, particular body. Destroy it, and the machine you see before you will crumble."

He took another 'step'. "But I? I will live on. My spirit of vengeance burns too strong, and my hatred will never be quenched.

He took another step, and it was then that I realized I had been slowly backing away from him the whole time. "I am more than the stories your mother told you at night, and I am more than the invisible phantom that haunts your accursed family."

Another step. "I am the silent predator in the night, guided only by the shimmer of the moon, and the sound of your heart. I am the relentless hunter, who's only goal is to tear your pitiful life apart, piece by piece."

Another step. "I am the very manifestation of power, vengeance, and hatred."

Another step. "And you can't stop me, Cooper. Countless of your ancestors have tried, and many even believed they succeeded. But all eventually met their end at my talons."

Another step. "And you will too. When next we meet, you may defeat me once again, and again the next time, and again the time after that. But I will always prevail in the end."

With one last step, the monster was right in front of me, face to face, paralyzing me the wicked gaze of his two, great, yellow orbs.

"And then," he said quietly, even though the words were deafening to my ears. "Your children will be next. And then their children, and their children after that. One by one, I will hunt them all down. I will not stop. I cannot be stopped. I am the everlasting demon that heralds your family's ruin."

Slowly, the beak of the great owl began to open, as though he were preparing to swallow me up.

"I am immortal. And you. Will _._ Die."

But before the great beast could strike, the crackle of an electric blast suddenly filled the air. A glowing, blue shot lit up the dark twilight, before exploding across Clockwerk's face, causing the owl to rear back with a cry of pain. Broken from my trance, I spun around to see, without a doubt in my mind, the most beautiful sight in the world.

"Actually," Carmelita said, with the end of her raised shock pistol still smoking. "He's going to be spending the rest of his life in Interpol's maximum security internment center. He'll get one phone call, if you want to contact him."

With a feral screech, Clockwerk reared back with all his might, sparks flying from his wing and the other parts that didn't want to respond to his commands. Locking both eyes onto Carmelita, he prepared to lash out and presumably crush her with his weight.

"No!" I yelled, bounding forward and pushing the fox out of his path, seconds before his head smashed with a resounding force onto the spot she had just been standing. With a huff of pain, she rolled to the ground and I accidentally fell on top of her. We stayed like that for a moment, silently, breathing heavily. As I looked up into her eyes, I couldn't help but give her that coy grin that always seemed to work her up.

Sure enough, the flustered look on her face was quickly replaced with a grumpy scowl. "Get off of me, Cooper." She pushed me off of her body, giving her the room to climb back to her feet. I followed suit and, while I nursed an arm I was positive was going to sport a nasty bruise (only one of many), we walked together towards the spot Clockwerk had fallen.

The great bird appeared to have knocked the last of his functioning components out with that last strike, as the lower half of his beak lay dislocated on the ground, and one of his yellow eyes hang by a red cord out of the cracked glass.

But he was still alive. Despite laying in literal pieces, the monster was still exerting an effort to pick himself off of the ground. As we both stared at his body, his great head slowly began to turn towards us until his one functioning eye was locked onto me.

"You can't stop me, Sly Cooper." He said, his voice distorted by heavy static. "Your friends can't keep you safe forever, and even prison won't shield you from feeling my wrath. Walls crumble, and people wither, but I will always return…"

"And we'll always be ready for you." Carmelita said plainly.

With that, she suddenly reached out and snatched the hate chip from my grasp. Before I or even Clockwerk could react, she had thrown the device on the ground and crushed it underneath the heel of her boot.

The effect was immediate, as Clockwerk's whole body suddenly jolted as though he had been struck by lightning. Slowly but surely, patches of rust began popping up all along the surface of his metal skin, and began expanding steadily across his body like a swarm of parasites. Great, rippling cracks started to appear wherever the rust touched, and dust began to fall to the ground as Clockwerk's body finally began to be eaten away by the time he had so long ignored.

It took no longer than a minute for the sharp silver of his body to be completely replaced by the crimson red of caustic rust, falling off and blowing away in the gentle French breeze. And then, finally, the yellow light of his evil eye faded into dark nothingness, cracking as the glass fell to the ground in shards. All in all, his whole body had become little more than an unrecognizable pile of rusty red dust.

And yet, his laughter remained. A dark, twisted, evil laugh that seemed to surround us on all sides. Even as it slowly began to fade with the rest of him, that laugh shook me to my very core. But then, eventually, even that stopped, and as all was finally silent, I found myself suddenly on my knees, overcome with sheer exhaustion.

"Are you alright, Cooper?" Carmelita asked with a gentle voice I don't think I'd ever heard her use before.

I nodded, silently, but confidently. "Yeah. It's over. For now."

She sighed, looking at the rusted remains of Clockwerk's body, before she said. "What happened to Neyla?"

"Clockwerk…" I said, pausing. "Got rid of her. After…"

Immediately, an image of my friends came back to my tired mind, and I suddenly jumped to my feet despite my exhaustion.

"Bentley!" I yelled, spinning around to try to find them. "Murray!"

I saw them far away, standing just outside of the field of debris. I immediately began sprinting towards them, leaving Carmelita and Clockwerk's remains behind.

"How is he?" I asked as I drew close to the pink hippo and the injured turtle. Bentley was still lying limply in Murray's arms, and it looked like the poor turtle had passed out. As I asked my question, Murray tore his eyes away from the friend in his arms to look at me with the most brokenhearted look I'd ever seen him give. The big guy looked like he was about to start bawling uncontrollably.

"He's hurt real bad, Sly." He said quietly.

"I know." I said. "I know buddy. Don't worry. We'll get out of here, and we'll get help for him, I promise."

"Actually, you're not going anywhere."

I turned to see Carmelita standing with her shock pistol pointed at my head. "Sly Cooper, and company." She said. "You're under arrest for thievery, vandalism, breaking and entering, grand larceny, resisting arrest, and various other international criminal activities. You all have the right to remain silent."

Despite how tired I was, I couldn't help but crack a small grin at how predictable Carmelita could be. In fact, looking back on it, I'm surprised she didn't pull her gun on me earlier.

But my smile and my heart fell as my mind returned to our current situation, and I looked back at Murray and Bentley. I knew there was no way we were going to be able to make a quick getaway.

"Carmelita. Wait." I turned back to her, trying to reason. "Bentley is hurt and…"

"I know." She interrupted. "And I promise to make sure he gets the best medical care we have available. But there's no way you're walking away again, Cooper." After a pause, she added. "I'm sorry."

I faltered, unsure what to say. I knew that I couldn't let my friends be dragged away to prison because of me, and after a quick moment of consideration, I knew what I had to do.

"You only want me, right?" I asked softly, looking back at the two friends that had been with me since I had become a young orphan all those years ago. "Can we make a deal?"

* * *

You know, Clockwerk liked to throw the word 'immortal' around a lot.

I guess he seemed to think that existing in that metal husk for eternity, fueled by nothing but his mission of revenge against my family, could actually be called living. If it were anyone else, I think I'd almost feel bad for him.

After all, if your every waking thought was about making the lives of your enemies a living nightmare, I think you'd be blind to the fact that you're living a nightmare yourself.

And I think there's something that Clockwerk just doesn't understand, and probably never will. Hatred? Hatred may make you live forever. But compassion? Friendship? Sacrifice? Well, these are what make you immortal.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** _Alright, I'll admit I'm kinda proud of this one. Not because it's extremely well written or anything, but because I've had this idea rolling around in my head for a really long time, and I finally got down to actually writing it after replaying Sly 2 a little while ago. I already had the basic premise pretty much outlined, and I before I knew it, I had written 4000 words in just under a week. I think that's the fastest I've written something in a very long time._

 _And yeah, here it is. I suppose it could technically be called an alternate ending to Sly 2, but in the end, not that much of the actual storyline would really change if this actually were to happen. All it would do is, you know, leave more possibilities open for the future..._

 _Because, let's be honest, Clockwerk was probably the best villain that the Sly series has ever had. His design was simple but fantastic, his motivations and his backstory are pretty much perfect considering the setting of the games, his voice was beyond awesome. It's a real shame that they never really utilized him in any game following the second, and even then they screwed it up with the whole... ugh, I don't wanna say it... "Clock-la" thing. I dunno, hopefully he'll make a proper return eventually, in some form._

 _And, that's about it. I hope you all enjoyed this little thing. If any of you happen to be fans of Dawn of Devastation, then don't worry, I'm going to be getting right back to that. I've already finished half of the next chapter, so it should hopefully be out soon. Fingers crossed._

 _Also, for anyone wondering why the title is in Latin... I dunno. I wanted to make a Latin title. Latin is cool._

 _Anyway, that's all I've got for now. Thank you all for viewing and reviewing, and I'll see you soon._

 _Yours Truly, Ultimate Supreme Executive Chairman._


End file.
